South Korean TV broadcaster MBC recently aired a Korean language documentary that centers on a family’s loss of their young daughter, seven-year-old Nayeon. Using the power of photogrammetry, motion capture, and virtual reality, the team recreated Nayeon for one last goodbye with the family’s mother, Ji-sung.
Innovation comes from all ages, and this is further seen in the story of Xóchitl Guadalupe Cruz, an eight-year-old girl from Chiapas, Mexico who invented an entirely solar-powered device for heating water. The impact her invention could have on others around the world is immense, and this has inspired the UNAM’s (National Autonomous University of Mexico) Institute of Nuclear Sciences to award her.
To those in developed countries, her invention may not seem all that revolutionary as access to warm or hot water is commonplace, but for those in many other areas of the world, including her town in Mexico, this would be a luxury.
Cruz’s device was inspired by the desire to reduce deforestation and pollution by replacing the need to cut logs for heating water, which is the primary method used in her part of the world. Cruz furthers her commitment to environmentally sound practices by utilizing recycled materials to build her device.
Cadillac is fully aware it needs to continue launching new vehicles that are not only relevant for the times but also offer something new. That something is — big surprise — electrification. At the moment, GM’s luxury brand does not sell an EV and its only hybrid model, the Cadillac CT6 Hybrid, is about to be discontinued. Eventually, the just-revealed 2021 Cadillac Escalade will likely offer a plug-in hybrid variant and, perhaps, an all-electric one as well. Thing is, Cadillac can’t wait that long for an Escalade EV, but it turns out an alternative is coming very soon.
GM President Mark Reuss announced last week at the automaker’s Capital Markets Day presentation the brand’s first-ever EV will debut this April. And yes, it will be a crossover, a fact that was announced a year ago at the Detroit Auto Show. Oddly, Cadillac did not preview this vehicle with a concept in the Motor City.
Scientists at Newcastle University, in the United Kingdom, have 3D printed the world’s first real human corneas. This is unbelievable news since today, there is a significant shortage of corneas available for transplant. In the future, this printing technique could be used to ensure an unlimited supply of corneas.
The cornea is the outermost layer of the human eye and it has an important role in focusing vision. Statistics show that there are currently 10 million people worldwide requiring surgery to prevent corneal blindness as a result of diseases such as trachoma, an infectious eye disorder. On top of that, there are an additional 5 million people who suffer total blindness due to corneal scarring caused by burns, lacerations, abrasion or disease.
For the first time, researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Strasbourg have simulated the formation of galaxies in a universe without dark matter. To replicate this process on the computer, they have instead modified Newton’s laws of gravity. The galaxies that were created in the computer calculations are similar to those we actually see today. According to the scientists, their assumptions could solve many mysteries of modern cosmology. The results are published in the Astrophysical Journal.
Cosmologists today assume that matter was not distributed entirely evenly after the Big Bang. The denser places attracted more matter from their surroundings due to their stronger gravitational forces. Over the course of several billion years, these accumulations of gas eventually formed the galaxies we see today.
An important ingredient of this theory is the so-called dark matter. On the one hand, it is said to be responsible for the initial uneven distribution that led to the agglomeration of the gas clouds. It also explains some puzzling observations. For instance, stars in rotating galaxies often move so fast that they should actually be ejected. It appears that there is an additional source of gravity in the galaxies that prevents this—a kind of “star putty” that cannot be seen with telescopes: dark matter.
Data can be stolen from an air gapped personal computer just by using variations in screen brightness. Researchers at Ben-Gurion University wrote a paper on it.
As the team defines them, “Air-gapped computers are systems that are kept isolated from the Internet since they store or process sensitive information.”
That they have come up with yet another discovery on how to wrest sensitive data from a computer came as no shock to Naked Security, which recognized that “Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have made a name for themselves figuring out how to get data out of air-gapped computers. They’ve dreamed up ways to communicate using speakers, blinking LEDs in PCs, infrared lights in surveillance cameras, and even computer fans.”
Scientists from the United States to Australia are using new technology in an ambitious, multi-million-dollar drive to develop a vaccine in record time to tackle China’s coronavirus outbreak.
The new virus has spread rapidly since emerging late last year in China, killing more than 800 people in the mainland and infecting over 37,000. Cases have been reported in two dozen other countries.
Coming up with any vaccine typically takes years, and involves a lengthy process of testing on animals, clinical trials on humans and regulatory approvals.
An image of her daughter was created with ‘virtual reality’ for a mother who lost her daughter in 2016 in South Korea. The moment the mother met her daughter left those in the studio in tears.
In 2016, the 7-year-old daughter of a woman named Jang Ji-sung, Nayeon, died after an illness.